Monday Bolts – 8.24.09
my surprise there were a lot of Warriors supporters. I expected quite a few to select the Oklahoma City Thunder, but no one did.”
While bloggers maybe don’t love the Thunder, OKC tied for fifth in a SportsNation poll vote. The Raptors somehow pulled down almost 20 percent of 20,000 votes. But we all know that everybody actually just voted for their first favorite team in that poll to make it look better.
This was on TrueHoop Friday – Basketball Reference says Desmond Mason was not good last year: “In other words, if there’s a statistical category out there (at least in terms of the box score), odds are that it showed Desmond Mason to be a really bad player last season. Not just mediocre, not just below-average, but legitimately terrible. All of which begs the question, on what planet does Desmond Mason deserve a multi-year contract “in the neighborhood of” $5+ million per? To be honest, he’s lucky anybody is still interested in him at all after his last four seasons. Because four years of purely awful basketball is not an aberration. It’s a trend. And it’s only getting worse.”
Both Teams Played Hard is ranking the logos: “Moreover, even for a nonplural, the name Thunder is just weak. Dogs and 12-year-old girls are the only things scared of thunder. Lighting is a little scary, sure. It can kill you. But loud noises are not intimidating. There are certainly thousands of other nouns that Oklahoma City could have chosen that would have been better, but, for my money, the Oklahoma City Outlaws would have been the ideal choice.” And how much less intimidating is Thunder than “Lakers,” “Pistons” or “Spurs”? Oh crap, did you see the pistons in that engine?!?! RUNNNNNN!!!!!!
Ben from Blazers Edge looks at my secret love for Portland: “In that light, it’s particularly interesting to read Young’s words because they really throw an added dimension of weirdness on this whole “Oklahoma City” scenario. My first thought is “Cool!.” My second thought is “He’s probably going to get killed by his commenters for admitting that.” My third thought is existentially questioning whether fans of expansion/moved franchises can care as much about their teams as fans of more established franchises. My final thought is that he should probably just give up on the “Thunder” and become a full-time Blazers fan. His life would be better.”
Ground will be broke on the new training facility Thursday: “A year from now, Oklahoma City’s NBA team will feature what team chairman Clay Bennett has promised — a training facility that will rival any in the league. When fans hear terms such as “finest facilities,” some probably envision Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban providing his players with personal laptops, flat screen TVs and a plush locker room. The Thunder’s new facility will provide perks for players, but a training facility’s primary role is to provide practice courts and weight training equipment to assist players during a grueling 82-game season.”
See, this is why it’s good to have a team with no tattoos because they can’t take pictures of them: “Take a good look at the bottom right-hand corner of that picture. No, not the 7-Up bottle, that’s a good thing. Kid doesn’t need any caffeine. No, what’s curious, and what drew multiple comments on the TwitPic page and his Twitter account are what appear to be two plastic bags of something on the table. Ruh-roh.”
Steve Aschburner writes about the NBA’s big cut-back: “The Memphis Grizzlies got the headlines this offseason when they shuttered their amateur scouting staff, dumping all five full-timers who evaluated college and European draft prospects. But a number of other teams have nipped and tucked on the basketball side as well, playing hardball on salaries, not renewing an extra assistant coach here or there, keeping training camp at home rather than heading 100 miles away to a leafy college campus, and reevaluating the costs of preparing for each game.”